Digital Impulses

Regular Saturday

Spent the morning at Robert's hockey game in Torrance.  I was there to take pictures of the game, but since I guess it misted a little overnight, the roof of the skating rink where they were going to play was leaking and causing the surface to be dangerously slippery.

As a result, the game was canceled and all of the time it took for them to get suited up and then warmed up was for naught.  The referees (city employees, naturally) simply felt that it wasn't safe to play and so they will have to play again at another date.

After the hockey, we all drove to a hole-in-the-wall diner in Redondo Beach called "Eat at Joe's" and had a really good breakfast there.  We then agreed to get together soon after Robert returns from his upcoming trip to Vegas.

I returned home from Breakfast to find that Reyna was once again in FULL DRAMA mode, this time regarding health issues her mom is facing in Colima.  I dealt with that as best I could and then spent the rest of the afternoon at home before going to Boston Market for dinner by myself.

Scrabble was late this evening, where I split a pair of games with Bert.

S-L-E-E-P and Scrabble

SLEEP.

That is all I did this morning g and this afternoon, save for a quick trip to the Bakery and breakfast at PIggies.

Bert called me and woke me up at 1600 and was in utter disbelief that I had been sleeping all day.  After he called me, I roused myself out of bed and went in to my office to sit at Zeus to kill time until it was time to head to Asela's for dinner.

Dinner was great save for a bit of indigestion as I arrived at the Rojas residence.  After dinner, I drove up to Palos Verdes with Evan and we stopped at Seven-11 for some snacks.  Scrabble was OK, with a split of the 4 games being a repeat of the night before.

The mood at the table was, of course, set by Bert being a dick at some point or another.  Of course.

Fun Saturday

This morning I took a little time to go to the Sports Authority in Hawthorne to look at the Elliptical cardio machines.  They have a bunch of models, with some that have some neat features and that will accept an MP3 player as an entertainment source.

After checking out the Elliptical machines, I stopped by Denny's in El Segundo for some breakfast that was great. After breakfast I came home and just puttered around the house and my office until it was time to go to Bert's parent's house for dinner.

Dinner was fine and the atmosphere at the table was pretty good also.  Scrabble in PV was excellent, as I won both games, placing 3 bingos and scoring +450 points in the first game and then placing another bingo and some other high-scoring words to win the 2nd game by a healthy margin.

Nice!

Busy Saturday

Wow, what a day...

XBox shipped to Microsoft in Texas for repair
The first order of business was that I dropped off my son's XBox 360 at the local UPS office to send to Microsoft for repair.

Copying old VHS movies to DVD
After that I drove over to a video rental store that does movie transfers from VHS to DVD and left two old VHS tapes to transfer to DVD. I was quoted $50.00 and was told they would be ready by Tuesday 5/27/08.

Mom leaves on Vacation to the East Coast
After the errands in the morning, my mom and sister came to pick me up and we went back to my mom's for me to help her load her suitcases and then head off to the airport.  The trip to the airport was uneventful and we pulled up at the American terminal.  I assisted my mom with the curb-side check-in and the tagging of her luggage.  I gave the American porter $15.00 for his help and hugged and kissed my mom good-bye.  That was much less stressful than I expected.

Dinner at Tony's for Feliz's Birthday
This evening I didn't eat at Adela's as today was my mother-in-law's birthday.  Instead, my son and his girlfriend, my wife, her mom and I drove over to the Redondo Beach Pier to have dinner at Old Tony's restaurant.

The food was great, the atmosphere was even better and we had a great time.  After dinner, I came home to wait a little while before leaving for Palos Verdes to play Scrabble with Bert.

Scrabble at Bert's
Scrabble at Bert's was sos-so.  I one 1 out of 3, and that made me 2 out 7 for the weekend. I am not playing badly, it just seems like Bert is on a gold strwak of getting the power tiles and/or incredibly friendly tiles at the time that he needs 'em.  Ah, well.  Nothing for it but to trudge forward and wait for the tide to turn.

A wedding reception and dinner in PV with Bert

So this afternoon after work, I drove with my wife over to a friend's house where there was to be a reception for the wedding of her son to a girl who is a friend of my wife's also.

I knew a few people there and the atmosphere was pleasant enough.  the food was really good and I was able to snap a few pictures of the bride and groom and some other folks there.  After being there for a while after dinner, I took off and drove over to Palos Verdes.

I arrived there a few minutes before 1900 and went inside the house.  Since Bert was taking a while to come down, I stepped into his backyard and entertained myself taking some pictures with my ever present iPhone.

eventually I went back inside and chatted with Bert while he cooked dinner.  We then sat down to eat dinner with his boys.  the food was good enough and there were no issues at the table.  After dinner we got an early start playing Scrabble and were able to get in a rare 4 games.  I won the 1st game but then proceeded to lose the next 3 games.

*sigh*.

1st day post stint removal

A nice relaxing day spent putzing around the house and in my office until it was time to go to Asela's for dinner.

Upon arrival, a few minutes later my buddy's in-laws arrived to show his parents the new 2007 Lincoln MKX Crossover car they had just purchased from Cerritos Lincoln.  The car was very nice and is in a color called "Creme Brulee", which, as far as I can tell, is exclusive to Lincoln.

After the hoopola with the car, they left and we eventually sat down for dinner (which was awesome) and had a nice chat with his parents.  After dinner we drove up to Palos Verdes and had a very enjoyable Scrabble session that consisted of two gmaes which I lost.  That was all mollified by the fact that I felt really, really good for like the first time in a month.

The Kidney Stone / Stint nightmare seems to be finally behind me. 

Praise God and his Angels!

What a Saturday

The events that took place on this Saturday in March are such that they are going to require two posts.

The day started off routinely enough, with Breakfast at Piggies followed by giving Claudia a ride to Eastlake Juvenile Detention Center near downtown L.A. to see her son Aldo.  After dropping off Claudia, I called Bert and told him I was near by.  He asked me to come by and we drove to an In N' Out burger joint off of the 60 freeway and had lunch there.

After lunch, on the way back to the factory, we stopped at at Coffee Bean for some drinks and then I dropped off Bert and picked up Claudia from her visit with Aldo.

Later in the evening we had dinner at Asela's and that was pretty good.  After dinner, we drove to Palos Verdes to play Scrabble. 

Bert's black aura
How it all started I have no idea, but as the night seemed to go on, Bert just seemed to get darker and darker and the tension in the room and with his boys was so thick you could cut it with a knife.  At one point, Bert pushed back from the table and left the kitchen and I was certain he was going to deal with his boys.  as it turned out, he just went upstairs to wash up and change his shirt, to see if he could snap out of it a little bit.

Scrabble was ordinary and I do not recall the results of the games.

Great Scrabble session: TRIPLE-TRIPLE, 158-point Bingo

I had a great time playing Scrabble tonight. 

I was in rare form, nearly completing a sweep and losing only the 1st game, and that by only 9 points. during one of the games, I architected a massive 158-point BINGO comprised of putting down the word R-E-B-U-I-L-D-I-N-G around an 'E' that Bert had the folly to place 1 square to the right of the bottom left "Triple Word Premium" square.

Because of the location of that 'E', my 'rebuilding' Bingo stretched all the way from the bottom left TWS square to the bottom middle TWS and thus, even though the word itself was only worth 12 points, it was multiplied 9 TIMES (TRIPLED and then TRIPLED again). All of a sudden 12 = 108 and you add to that the 50 point BINGO bonus for using all seven tiles and you end up with 158.  Hell Yeah!

To top off the night, at the end of the 3rd game, Bert left an open 'G', at the end of the row that started with the upper left TWS square. I was thus able to use this 'G" to place R-E-B-A-T-I-N-G for an 80-some odd points bingo and score a last turn, comeback from 40 points down victory.

What an awesome night of Bingo.  Sometimes the stars just line up and you get the tiles you need at the time that you need them. 

You have got to *love* that.

So-So Friday

Routine, quiet day at work, followed by a rare Friday night dinner at Asela's house (The Rojas have dinner plans with a friend of Patty's tomorrow night) and then a drive over to Palos Verdes to play Scrabble.

Bert accuses me of Cheating
The Scrabble session was contentious, with me retreating into my "Bert is being a dick" turtle shell after Bert insinuated that I was CHEATING by looking up the CORRECT SPELLING of "reseized", a word he had mis-spelled in a failed attempt at placing a bingo.

Predictably, I let him get under my skin and it affected my concentration level and thus my Scrabble play and I ended up losing 2 out of 3. 

God, his insinuation really pissed me off.  I need to work on rising above that.  He rankles me way to easily.

Dinner at Benihana with the Rojas's

Uneventful Friday, with a nice dinner at Benihana that was slightly marred by the fact that my wife ended up getting there 25 minutes late and as a result of it, we had to wait to be seated a little while.

Bert didn't like that very much, of course.

Once we sat down to eat, the food was just OK, since the cook put an excessive amount of ground pepper on the food and then we got a waitress who up and disappeared from the table ofter one or two visits and as such got about a 5% tip.

Scrabble at Bert's was very competitive and fun, and I managed to pull out 2 out of the 3 games.  I am currently playing the best Scrabble of my life, bar none.  I really hope to keep this up the rest of this year.